Thanks to Navajat for recommending this video.
“One specific activity cuts dementia risk by 76% — and it isn’t running, swimming, or anything you’d find in a gym. Harvard Medical School research cited by Dr. Trisha Pasricha shows that dancing outperforms reading (35% risk reduction), crossword puzzles (47%), and even regular aerobic exercise, which had almost no measurable effect on cognitive outcomes. In 2026, Kyoto University confirmed that dancing is especially powerful during subjective cognitive decline — the window between normal aging and early dementia, when intervention still works.
In this video, Dr. Sam Waterling breaks down exactly why dancing is the most cognitively demanding physical activity a human can do — and what that means for your brain, your spine, and your joints. Six brain regions fire simultaneously: the basal ganglia, cerebellum, kinesthetic zone, auditory cortex, limbic system, and prefrontal cortex. The spine gets full mobilization from neck to sacrum. Hip rotation releases the chronically spasmed iliopsoas — one of the leading causes of lower back pain in adults who sit for a living. A PLOS ONE study from Northeastern University confirms dancing meets American Heart Association cardio guidelines: 150 minutes of moderate activity per week. Bone density decline slows by 20-30%. A single session drops cortisol by 25-40%.
Dancing triggers simultaneous release of dopamine, serotonin, and endorphins — the same combination antidepressants approximate, without side effects or withdrawal. York University showed Parkinson’s patients who danced regularly improved concentration and daily function even as the disease progressed. Dance-movement therapy is now formally recognized in US and European clinical practice for depression, PTSD, and neurodegenerative disease.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OGvMDGeDAGc
Thanks, Navajat, i’ll dance with my mom every day.
But what kind of dance? I would think Hip-hop would be a little too demanding for the average seventy-year-old…
NP, I think that couple dances are the most therapeutic, because in addition to co-ordinating with the music you have to find co-ordination with the other person: music + movement + empathy + embrace.
This is a song I can’t listen to without crying:
When you’ll be little girl, I will help you understand who you are.
I will be close to you like I never have before.
We will slow our pace if I walk fast.
I will speak for you if your voice stops.
We will play at remembering how many children you have,
that you were born on March 20, 1946.
If you wonder why there’s that ring on your finger,
I’ll tell you about my father, aka your husband.
I will teach you to stand on your own two feet,
to find your way home.
I will repeat my name a thousand times,
because you’ll forget it anyway.
And…it’s yet another day with you,
to give you back all the love you’ve given me,
and smile at the time that seems like it never passed.
When you’ll be a little girl, you will truly teach me who I am,
to understand that your son has become a man.
When I hold you in my arms and you seem light,
like a little girl on a swing.
I’ll make dinner,
I, who barely know how to make coffee.
I’ll repeat your name a thousand times
until you remember it.
And…it’s yet another day with you,
to give you back everything, all the good you’ve given me.
And also defeat the time that hasn’t passed for us.
There are things you can’t erase, there are hugs you shouldn’t waste.
There are gazes filled with silence that you can’t describe with words.
There’s that anger of seeing you change and the struggle of having to accept it.
There are pages of life, pieces of memory that I can’t forget.
And…it’s yet another day with you,
to give you back all this life you’ve given me
and smile at time and how it has changed us.
When you’ll be a little girl, I’ll hold you so tightly
that you won’t even be afraid of death.
You’ll give me your hand, I’ll give you a kiss on the forehead.
It’s late now, be good,
goodnight.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WUi3iBgS6QQ&list=RDWUi3iBgS6QQ&start_radio=1
Yes, I know that feeling, because I have encountered it as well. Yesterday my mother came to me as I sat reading, and asked what I’d like to have for dinner, and explained that she was running late because she had had such a long and intense chat with her sister. I listened to her, and said Come, mom, we will cook together today,”,=because late in the day she runs out of energy and gets depressed…
Ciao, Nityaprem.
Perhaps your mother is processing the recent grief of your father’s death.
I think it was a rather unexpected death; perhaps there wasn’t enough time, clarity, and energy to say the last things we wish would accompany the people we love or those we haven’t loved enough—things that, if they remain in our hearts, then we struggle to bear the weight.
Grief has a certain weight; crying helps me, but for it to work, I need to be alone, while for your mother, having you by her side is perhaps the greatest joy.
A little more silence and solitude, then you can dance with her.
She is now rather deaf, even with hearing aids, so our communication is often written rather than spoken. Which makes everything she does more difficult.
But she is a wonderful human being, and we get on very well, in our little commune of two people. We cherish our time together.
When I passed on to her the article above about dance protecting against dementia she said rather sadly, I can’t hear the music, and my balance is so bad I couldn’t dance even if I could hear it.
NP, I was talking to my friend Swati and somehow happened to share this post about your mother’. She shared that in 2011, in an accident, she suffered a spine injury, after which she also suffered from imbalance and was taking physiotherapy in which she was given something like a memory foam mattress to walk on for 10 minutes daily; then slowly she regained her balance. Thought & felt I could share this with you.
Thank you, Kavita, you never know what technique may help. I’ll certainly discuss it with my mother.
But her balance is not so bad that she can’t walk, for now she can get around with the help of a rollator and can even jog short distances again. She is slowly improving.
NP, maybe she can try dancing slowly on such a mattress, if you find one.
In any case this was just a suggestion, dear.
Personally, I guess, for me techniques can help only if there is trust in oneself. I had a spine problem a few years ago, went to a few doctors, you know the drill, x-ray etc., all of them told me that surgery was the only cure for that. Somehow didn’t trust them, found a sannyasin Russian therapist who has been practising in Poona for 30-plus years, who happened to be an ex-neighbuor in KP, from whom I took 15 sessions along with a few precautions for life, was cured in 5 sessions, but the deal was 15 non-refundable sessions, so I took all fiftenn, only because I enjoyed going for them
.
“Ronald Reagan is sitting in the barber’s chair having a haircut, when the barber casually says to him, ”Hey, Ronnie, the newspapers reported today that Osho told a great joke about you.”
”Yeah? What did he say?” asks Reagan.
”It was about how you became the president of the United States after a surgeon grafted a smile onto a donkey!”
Reagan, who shows no sign of discomfort, mumbles to the barber, “Yeah, very funny. Just finish my haircut, and I will have a shave as soon as you are finished.”
”Hey, Ronnie,” continues the barber, ”and did you hear what Osho said about you being worse than Adolf Hitler, Mussolini, and Ivan the Terrible put together?”
Ronald Reagan’s face turns bright red but he does not say a word.
The barber continues, ”And did you hear what Osho said about..?”
Ronald Reagan interrupts the barber, saying, ”Will you just get on with the haircut? Why are you always so interested in Osho, anyway?!”
”Well,” replies the barber, ”besides the fact that he is a very far-out guy, every time I mention the name Osho, your hair stands on end and it makes it a lot easier to cut!””
( Osho, ‘Satyam, Shivam, Sunderam’ )
A man once asked an old Buddhist monk:
“How can I allow myself to feel peace or happiness when the world is full of suffering, injustice, pain and chaos?”
The monk looked at him calmly and asked:
“If your house was dark, would you refuse to light a candle
Because the whole world is not illuminated yet?”
The man stood still.
The monk continued:
“The suffering of the world is real.
But if you completely destroy your own peace,
You create yet another exhausted and hopeless person.”
The man replied:
“But isn’t being happy selfish when others suffer?”
The monk smiled softly.
“A drowned man cannot save another drowning man.
Peaceful people heal more than broken people consumed by despair.”
Then the monk pointed to a pond nearby.
“If the water is disturbed, it cannot reflect clearly.
But when it gets quiet, everything becomes visible.”
He looked back at the man and said:
“The same goes for the mind.
A restless mind reacts with fear, anger and hopelessness.
A calm mind responds with wisdom, compassion and clarity.”
The man lowered his head and whispered:
“But the world still feels so heavy.”
The monk nodded.
“Yes. And that’s why your peace is even more important.”
Then he added softly:
“Don’t carry the pain of the whole world in one heart.
Instead…
Be nice where you are.
Help where you can.
Speak softly.
Reduce the suffering around you, even in small ways.
A single candle cannot take away all darkness…
But it still changes the room it enters.”
In Buddhism, happiness is not ignoring suffering.
It’s learning how to stay compassionate
Without letting the suffering of the world completely destroy your mind.
The monk smiled one last time and said:
“Protect your inner peace. The world needs more calm hearts, not more broken minds.”
I asked the AI why Ronald Reagan was an economic idiot or simply a puppet in the hands of the usual bunch of bored psychopaths, always seeking new emotions, such as not feeling emotions when they manage to instill more violent ones in others:
“The main economic damages attributed to Ronald Reagan’s presidency (so-called Reaganomics) include the enormous increase in public debt, the rise in social and economic inequality, the shrinking of the middle class, and the weakening of workers’ bargaining power. These negative effects are articulated in specific areas: Explosion of the national debt: Massive tax cuts (especially for the highest incomes) combined with the skyrocketing military spending were not offset by economic growth, causing the American public debt to double. Increased inequality: The trickle-down economic theory (according to which tax breaks granted to the richest would ultimately benefit society as a whole) led to a strong concentration of wealth at the top and to the impoverishment of large segments of the middle class. Contraction of welfare and services: To partially stem the deficit generated by tax cuts, the administration implemented severe reductions in public spending on social and welfare programs. Weakening of unions: Deregulation policies and the decisions to fire thousands of striking air traffic controllers in 1981 triggered a decade of intense union repression and stagnation in real wages”.
Hi, Nityaprem, my mother also had hearing problems, then, a few years ago, it seems that the stimulation of the hearing aid helped her recover some of her hearing ability; now she rarely wears it.
Osho wasn’t targeting an idiot or a corrupt person, but an entire system of power that expressed itself through the president of the United States.
Does anyone doubt today that there could exist, today as then, people above the rules, indeed protected by them, who would find it amusing to eliminate a voice, like Osho’s, outside the chorus of the collective consciousness?
I agree with the Zen master: the condition of the external world cannot be improved by destroying the internal condition within ourselves.
A mind contemplating a chaotic situation, such as war, is no indication of a lack of wisdom, compared to a mind that prefers to contemplate the silence of a closed room.
Thank you for this brilliant sharing, NP. _/\_
I thought, if it applies to Buddhism it can apply to Sannyas as well. It’s a good sentiment.
Yes, now I feel guilt-free for having relative peace
.
A mind contemplating a chaotic situation, such as war, is no indication of a lack of wisdom, compared to a mind that prefers to contemplate the silence of a closed room.
Wondering if Wisdom actually can be relatve!
It’s definitely possible to have a relative who is wise
The Zen master invites us to respect the pillars of wisdom, but he doesn’t say where to do it: “Be nice where you are. Help where you can….”
“Don’t be deceived by words, because words have not been coined by enlightened people.
The suave, impeccably dressed gentleman approached the menswear counter and was greeted by a beautiful, shapely, young attendant.
”Good afternoon,” she murmured huskily, ”and what is your desire?”
”My desire,” he said, after giving her a long appreciative look, ”is to take you in my arms, rush you to my apartment, open a magnum of champagne, put on some romantic music, and make hot love to you. However, what I need now is new shirts.”
The word ‘desire’ created the whole trouble. He had come only to purchase shirts; if the girl had asked, ”What is your need? What is your requirement?” things would have been different.”
( Osho, ‘Satyam, Shivam, Sunderam’ )
“But human mind is very cunning; it tries to the very end to deceive you. And you are very naive, you go on being deceived.
Sadie Moskovitz took her old grandmother to the movies. It was an epic about the Roman Empire. In one scene a lot of unarmed prisoners were thrown to the lions. The old grandmother broke out into loud wails, crying out, ”Ah, those poor people.”
Sadie was very embarrassed and whispered fiercely, ”Don’t scream like that, Grandma. Those are Christians.”
Choked, Grandma said, ”I see.” She was quiet at once, but then began wailing louder than before.
”Grandma,” demanded Sadie, ”what is it now?”
”Over there,” said Grandma, pointing, ”that poor little lion at the back. He’s not getting any Christian.”
Beware of your mind more than anything else in the world. It is the greatest deceiving device which has been created by your body, physiology, chemistry, biology. It keeps you tethered to the body and does not allow you to open your eyes to your consciousness. It keeps you engaged; it does not give you even a little holiday. The danger is that if you are given a little holiday you may become aware of your inner grandeur, the beauty of your being and the enormous truth and the glory of it. And once you have seen that splendour, you are not going to be deceived anymore.”
( Osho, ‘Satyam, Shivam, Sunderam’ )
“You have to love your children, your wife, your husband, your parents, your priests, elders, neighbours – there are even teachers like Jesus who say you have to love your enemies too. Just don’t love yourself! This strange logic has destroyed your very roots of loving.
I say unto you: first and foremost, love yourself. And if you can love yourself, others will start getting your love very naturally, without any pretensions, very spontaneously. A man full of love soon starts overflowing. You cannot contain your love into the small space you have within you; your love is far greater than you are. Your love can fill the whole earth. A single man’s love can fill the whole universe. It is so vast that you can go on sharing with everybody.
But if your very source remains closed, then all that is left is to pretend. Everybody is pretending; that’s why there is so much talk about love, so much poetry, so much literature. And if you look around, you don’t find love anywhere, you never encounter it.
I want the whole universe to be a loving, rejoicing universe. But I see where humanity has failed, where its teachers, messengers of God and saviours have taken a wrong route. They listened to logic and they forgot that logic is absolutely man-made; it has nothing to do with your nature.”
( Osho, ‘Satyam, Shivam, Sunderam’ )
“But please don’t make me responsible for anything. The responsibility is very dangerous – it is walking on a razor’s edge. Today you find your mother is healing, and you praise me and love me and trust me. But no mother can live forever. The day she dies, your whole love, your trust in me, will simply disappear because I allowed your mother to die, because I did not give her the healing energy. That’s why I want my hands from the very beginning to be completely clean.
I don’t accept praise because I know behind every praise there is the possibility of condemnation. I am condemned already too much all over the world. At least leave a few people who don’t condemn me! But you may not be aware that this is how things go wrong. People start expecting and if their expectations by some coincidence are fulfilled, they are immensely grateful. But it is only a coincidence. If they are not fulfilled, then I am ”the god who has failed.” First they make me a god, just to declare finally that I am the god who has failed.
I am simply enjoying my energy. It is overflowing and enough for anybody who wants to share it. But the whole doing is theirs.”
( Osho, ‘Sat, Chit, Anand’ )
I find it an interesting answer to the question of Osho meddling in his disciples’ lives on an energetic level. The sannyasin who asked the question was wondering about his mother receiving healing energy.
“I find it an interesting answer to the question of Osho meddling in his disciples’ lives on an energetic level. The sannyasin who asked the question was wondering about his mother receiving healing energy.”
Fact is: Only being can recognize being.
Maybe this is the reason, coach potatoes are glued to “Let us dance” kind of shows!
One mind-blowing article is brewing in my mind.
Kavita from Pune gave the motivation, this is worthy to discuss at this site.
Hopefully I forward that to the editor-in-chief.
Article based on true events of Mr Osho Rajneesh is so mind-blowing, it can bring chill to the conscience…
Till then, guess what could be that!
Good to hear from you again, Shantam.
But by “conscience” do you mean conscience in the sense of a set of personal moral/ethical beliefs, or do you mean ‘consciousness’?
Name change cult has talked enough of consciousness, conscience as an inner voice and sense of right and wrong were always put aside.
One cannot have the cake and eat it too, even if someone is self- =certified Enlightened or his ardent followers.
“Myth is a primordial tale that expresses the profound and universal truths of humanity. The symbol is the image, sign, or concrete object that condenses this meaning, allowing the mind to transcend the limits of rational thought to connect with the sacred and the unconscious.
These concepts have been explored over the centuries through various interpretations:
Anthropological function: For scholars, myths are cultural maps created to explain the universe (cosmogonic myths) or to justify rituals and behaviors (etiological myths)…” AI
Satyadeva, I don’t think psychoanalysis is very popular in India.
The latest news Mr Iqbal anticipated he’d like to share here soon, which would be “so mind-blowing” is aimed at Western conscience; he’s not talking about his own or the “sannyasin conscience” given that he has returned to the name his parents chose on the day of his birth.
Indian conscience is not so naive, and it is not easily overwhelmed by the theme of sin and guilt.
If in the West, thank to Freud, the conscious mind is the tip of the iceberg, Indian conscience, overexposed to the myths and symbols of religiosity, has a perspective, looking at the reality of the emerged world, from the bottom up, from the depths of the ocean.
India is so rich in symbols that the temptation for a Western spiritual seeker to close his eyes and explore that sea, whose symbols are just the marvelous shells, is irresistible.
I believe that Osho shares with Mr. Iqbal the same inner symbolic-mythological richness; perhaps the difference between the two lies in not considering the symbolic and monothematic poverty of the cross necessarily a limitation, a congenital naiveté.
If the ultimate outcome of the Master of Masters’ teachings was Zen, the exact opposite of a shell collector’s fetishism, it shouldn’t be surprising that it might be more difficult for an Indian to free himself from his belief system, which is far more sophisticated than that based on the guilt-atonement of the crucifix.
If Mr. Iqbal, on this forum, hadn’t been attacked for years by Western renegades, depraved because they were deprived of the symbol of the Father, the cross that before Osho had managed to contain their behavior, providing a Christian belief system (“Do not do unto others what you would not want done unto you”), perhaps today he wouldn’t be forced to return to the comfort zone of his cultural identity, flaunting, sometimes with irony, sometimes with pride, his collection of beach jewelry.
I can’t guess what new scandal our hero will discuss, but he has provided some clues, even if the ironic tone might mislead.
Since he’s addressing naive Westerners, but with a nod to our friend Kavita, who currently seems to be the only commentator from an Indian culture (perhaps not Sikh), it might make sense to intersect the two moral codes our two friends grew up with:
Mr. Iqbal’s Father (with the Khanda-sword) is concerned with protecting his children from the “five thieves,” who steal common sense from humans:
kaam-lust, krodh-wrath or anger, lobh-greed, moh-attachment, and ahankar-ego or excessive pride;
In Kavita’s culture of origin, the Father takes care to protect his children from the boredom of life, in the form of infinite reincarnations, by advising them to avoid the six enemies of the mind (arishadvarga):
kama (desire), krodha (anger), lobha (greed), mada (arrogance), moha (delusion), and matsarya (jealousy).
Since our warrior friend has criticized the greed and lust of Pune’s bosses for many years, if he’s thinking of writing something original, perhaps this time he could address something on Kavita’s list that he doesn’t have on his own: jealousy (?).
Sw. Veet, it seems you were an Indian Brahmin in many, many lives. Brahmins get high through Shashtras (scriptures), Rajneesh literature has become the addictive opium for you.
I have submitted the article to the editor, it is a memoir of a close female disciple of late Bhagwan aka timeless Osho!
MOD:
SN will not publish this memoir, Shantam, you’ll have to find another place for it. No further discussion of this topic will be published.
I see you like to play with your interlocutors, Shantam I Singh, by not giving any clues about your true self-perception, starting with your name, which keeps changing.
There’s no need for that; in a forum, it’s easy enough for misunderstandings to arise. This is also a feature of literature, as in the comedy of errors, almost the norm when communication occurs between distant people, often never met or embraced before.
Some people find the literary entertainment that Sannyasnews, especially in the past, offered commentators appreciable. This was also thanks to your contributions, which made you one of the funniest characters in the virtual village, before another character burst onto the scene, wielding a club, proposing a shift in literary genre from comedy to epic (since the undisputed hero of a nation of disciples can only be their Master, not the disciple most daring in displaying the largest hemorrhoids). This is also because in the meantime, the more gentle, lyrical characters had been forced off the scene, ridiculed by the comedians.
Not so for me; I don’t enjoy using this place of friends and former friends of Osho for literary entertainment purposes.
I don’t know you, and so, like with others, I suspend judgment on the real person behind your writing. But you don’t have a clearly definable literary character…it seems you oscillate between a lyrical approach (when you seem preoccupied with the Master’s material legacy—OIF), until the comedians frustrate your communicative attempts, and the dramatic approach of resentful isolation.
To avoid succumbing to the “comedians’” desire to reduce the spiritual and human story of Osho (and his people) to a tale of collective idiocy, one must accept the challenge of responding in the literary register that best neutralizes those who would dominate the narrative.
And when interpretations of what one reads-writes conflict, one must go back to the character who is describing himself in writing and evaluate his literary consistency.
Here too, in my case, one is not judging the real person who writes, but the fictional entity of the “writer character.”
For example, you label me a Brahmin addicted to Rajneesh literature, while someone else labels me a conspiracy theorist. This would be fine if we recognized the literary boundaries and subjective limitations implicit in communicating with strangers on a forum, as already described.
In fact, if from your point of view I’m among those, or the one, who reads the most books by Osho, for someone else, however, I might be the one who reads the most books by Icke.
From my perspective, judging from the autobiographical data shared on SN over the years, I think those in this forum who have the most reading training are those who, unlike me, attended university (I believe they went to), that is, literary figures who signed their comments with names like Premartha, Satyadeva, Kavita, Swamishanti, Nityaprem, Klaus, Arpana… and who knows how many others. I’m not sure if Lokesh and Frank honed their undisputed literary skills at university, but I certainly sense they’ve read more books than me, especially underground fiction and non-fiction.
I’m more interested in socio-political reality, as a necessary but not sufficient condition for fostering meditation (in the Master’s vision) so I read summaries of socio-political analyses in articles and interviews, then I follow the debates at conferences and in Telegram chats, etc.
About 20 years ago, a friend of mine, a true bookworm—only fiction, absolutely no non-fiction, instilled in me a passion for fiction. Until then, I had read almost exclusively non-fiction. It lasted until my eyes began to tire and my mind began to feel increasingly voracious.
At my request, she recommended entertaining books that I devoured (by Niccolò Ammaniti, Camilleri-Montalbano, Ken Follett, Hanif Kureishi, the Stieg Laarsson trilogy… there was only one book I couldn’t finish, or even start, and she was a little disappointed about that: “Never Let Me Go” by K. Ishiguro). Then I started choosing books without her advice (she had always read almost everything noteworthy available in bookstores), also because we argued… I was disappointed by her decision to swallow Bill Gates’ COVID-19 narrative. Yes, too much literature, I think, is harmful; you risk ending up believing that language coincides with reality.
I experienced the height of my literature addiction in Goa, a sudden bout of double vision while reading a book by C.L. Zafòn, “The Shadow of the Wind,” translated into Italian. I found it on a restaurant stall. That night, I ignored the problem because I was too engrossed in the story.
Osho has nothing to do with my literary cravings; I’ve never managed to read one of his books from cover to cover. I don’t find it entertaining at all, just as my own face in the mirror doesn’t entertain me.
I prefer singing and dancing and playing soccer every Monday at 9 p.m., or volleyball on the beach. All of this seems very un-Brahminical to me.
However, if you address a group of disciples expecting to say something definitive about Osho or his people, this Brahminical attitude of yours risks turning me into a relentless philologist, not because I love reading your literature…
Perhaps you could consider gratitude the highest form of transcending one’s Master.
It’s funny, I’ve been enjoying a video podcast called ‘The Book Club’ which has reignited my literary leanings.
So in my new enthusiasm I picked up a copy of ‘The Brothers Karamazov’ by Fyodor Dostoyevsky. I started reading it, and found it terribly dull. Within thirty pages it had doused my ardour.
I quickly retreated to reading ‘The Hobbit’, by many considered a children’s book but far more enjoyable and colourful than the dreadful Russian tome.
This exchange left me wondering, is literature really worth persisting with if you don’t enjoy it? There are classics I enjoy, like Dickens, Dumas, Verne, Wells, etc.
Nityaprem, if you’re looking for easy indulgence in the “1,000 kinetic alternatives to flipping through the pages of a book,” you’ve found it.
I was immediately discouraged by classic middle school texts (when I was between 11 and 13). The Greek mythology of the angry Achilles and the adventurous Ulysses didn’t excite me, nor did The Divine Comedy, written in a 700-year-old language, or the romantic story of Manzoni’s ‘The Betrothed’.
Perhaps the teachers themselves weren’t enthusiastic; after all, it can’t be easy to decide which books are educational and which aren’t.
But here we’re talking about books that entertain or amuse us; the choice should be easier.
Perhaps the book’s theme and the author’s style are decisive.
With non-fiction, it’s different; the motivation to engage in reading comes from the desire to better understand an aspect of reality, which usually boils down to a more accurate description of it, hypothesizing a new interpretation of the mystery that pervades us.
I think I’ve already mentioned that a book (not for insiders) of psychoanalysis, about love, sat on the shelf for 20 years before I crossed the two metres that separated it from my bed.
I wonder if the time has come to give it another try, with what is considered Proust’s masterpiece, put on hold since 1984.
“In fact anything that is great in life has no reason.
Once Picasso was painting by the side of a rosebush and a man was standing there watching for almost an hour. Finally he could not resist the temptation and said to Picasso, ”Excuse me, sir, but I cannot see any reason for what you are painting. I have looked at it from every side…I can’t even figure out what it is!”
Picasso looked at him and said, ”Just look at the roses. Go to them and try to find out why they are there. I am so much harassed and nobody asks the birds, nobody asks the peacock, “Why this beautiful tail, with so many beautiful colours?” Nobody asks the cuckoo – the sound is so sweet, almost incomparably sweet – nobody asks the trees, ‘”Why are you green?” And every idiot comes to me to ask, “What are you doing, what is the meaning of it?” Go to God and ask him, “What is the meaning of this whole universe?”
I am a small creator, he is a big creator…Just go – perhaps he knows the reason.
But I know, if you meet God, he will not know the reason either. What reason can he supply for why he painted the peacock’s feathers so beautifully? What was the reason? Why has he given a long white tail to the bird of paradise?”
( Osho, ‘Sat, Chit, Anand’ )
“Why has he given a long white tail to the bird of paradise?”
A biologist would say that he has given them a long white tail to attract the girls.
Thanks, Nityaprem, a nice reminder about the nature of beauty, beyond reason.
…even though I can’t appreciate the beauty of a Picasso painting…in my living room, I’d prefer to hang one by Lokesh, who fortunately shares with his Spanish colleague only his machismo and flair for marketing.
“In fact anything that is great in life has no reason.”
In fact, that is certainly not an immutable fact, and you would have to be a real dummy, or simply an Osho parrot, to believe it is.
Take a look around you, NP. There are lots of things in life that are great, and there are good reasons they’re great. Let’s take laser eye surgery as an example. The procedure involves using lasers to reshape the cornea. The clinical name for farsightedness is hyperopia. People with this condition can see objects in the distance clearly, but other things can appear blurry at close distance. Farsightedness is due to the cornea being too flat. Laser eye surgery can correct this by reshaping the cornea to have a steeper curve.
Surely one has to agree that someone suffering from such a medical condition and then the condition being repaired is indeed ‘great’, fucking brilliant, in fact, if you ask me. And the reasons for it being great are many. And the reason it happened is that many gifted and skilled people applied themselves to make it happen. That is just one of many examples of things in life being great for definite reasons.
Perhaps it is time for you to awaken from your fluffy ‘Osho said it, so it must be true’ dream.
“It is true when you say, ”Osho, I also realise that I am still not seeing your total radiance and splendour.” But you are fortunate even to see a glimpse, because there are millions of people in the world who will not be able even to see the glimpse. On the contrary, they will only see everything evil that man has ever imagined – no glimpse of splendour, no glimpse of clarity, no glimpse of grace, but only a fear, a danger; danger to their morality, danger to their religion, danger to all that they think is valuable.”
( Osho, ‘Sat, Chit, Anand’ )
“So you should be happy, not sad that you don’t belong to those millions. You should feel fortunate, not frustrated that at least you are capable of seeing a faraway glimpse of the Himalayas. Just a little patience, a little closeness, a little more love, a little more gratitude, a little more openness, and you will start moving towards the ultimate splendour. It is not my property. It came into existence when I was no more. It is the property of existence itself.
So don’t be at all sad. There are many present here who have come far closer than you, who have looked into me more deeply than you. They are not in any way more special than you. They have just been patient – years of patience, years of silence, years of meditation, and this is nothing compared to the eternity of time.”
( Osho, ‘Sat, Chit, Anand’ )
Well, every saying by Osho is a tiny lens through which to see the world. It takes you on a journey through his being, his mind. It shouldn’t be taken as literal truth I don’t think, but that doesn’t mean it can’t move something in you, perhaps transform something, or make something clear.
I’ve been particularly enjoying ‘Sat, Chit, Anand’ because it is quite a short volume, and you get a certain sense of the people who were there.
Rajneesh said, Osho says…
There is a need to discuss what was that urgent need to change Rajneesh to Osho !
To understand this clever tactic can break the spell of an Indian mystic, whose ashes are preserved under the Ultimate bluff anyone ever made, ” Never Born Never Died.”
Maybe a good idea for an article, Shantam? I hear it’s hot in north India at the moment, my weather app is telling me that Varanasi has had a long stretch of temperatures over 40 degrees.
I don’t think, Nityaprem, that there’s room for a devotional article by Shantam, Satyadeva just rejected one of his.
Besides, it wouldn’t add much; it’s well known that Osho was clever, as were his tactics of providing fodder for gossip about him, avoiding creating the myth that then drives disciples, desperate for the lack of the Master’s infallible guidance, to bathe his grave with tears.
At most, with his clever tactics, he aimed to provide the opportunity for another opening of the heart, when the mind collapses in the gaps of his words: Never born, never died.
MOD:
Fyi, Veet Francesco, Shantam is welcome to submit a proposal for a new article.
Dancing is good, but only if that good, once achieved, can be shared, for example by inviting others to dance.
This also applies to meditation.
A critical article on Mindfulness (to be translated), useful for understanding Osho, when he recognizes an implicit rebellion in the spiritual seeker who pursues his own integrity (and not adaptation to an ethical code) in a world based on compromise of/for power:
“All the promises of mindfulness recall what University of Chicago cultural theorist Lauren Berlant calls ‘cruel optimism,’ a hallmark of neoliberalism. The cruelty lies in the fact that each of us emotionally invests in what are ultimately only fantasies. We are told that if we practice mindfulness and reorder our individual lives, we can be happy and secure. Stable employment, home ownership, social mobility, professional success, and equality will be the natural consequences. We are promised that we will achieve self-mastery, that control of our mind and emotions will allow us to thrive amidst the vagaries of capitalism.
Joshua Eisen (of the Department of Anthropology at McGill University in Montreal and (author of Mindful Calculation) observes: “Like cabbage, açaí berries, gym memberships, vitamin water, and all the New Year’s resolutions, mindfulness signals a deep desire for change, but one that relies on a fundamental reaffirmation of neoliberal fantasies of self-control and free action.” We just need to sit quietly, pay attention to our breathing, and wait. The cruelty is doubled because these normative fantasies of “living well” are already crumbling under the weight of neoliberalism, and focusing individually on our feelings only makes the situation worse. By neglecting our mutual vulnerability and interdependence, we fail to imagine how to defend ourselves collectively. And despite the emptiness of the fantasies we foster, we continue to cling to them.
Mindfulness is not cruel in and of itself. It is only cruel when it is fetishized and linked to disproportionate promises. It is then, as Berlant points out, that “the object that attracts our attachment actively impedes the purpose that brought us to it in the first place.” The cruelty lies in upholding the status quo while using the language of transformation. This is how neoliberal mindfulness promotes an individualistic vision of human flourishing, persuading us to accept things as they are, “consciously” enduring the ravages of capitalism.”
https://www.internazionale.it/notizie/ronald-purser/2022/11/18/meditazione-capitale
I don’t think that is true, that mindfulness makes promises of a stable and happy life. It helps you achieve a stable and happy mind, but you are still subject to the many vagaries of modern life in a capitalist society.
A little awareness of the breath every day goes a long way. Whenever you remember, just take a few deep, conscious breaths, like the start of a meditation, and you will feel better.
Nityaprem, can you find reasons, beyond commercial ones, why two age-old practices like Vipassana and Hatha Yoga should be mixed together and abstracted from their religious context?
Besides, the Buddhist vision, before conforming to the Big Pharma C19 bible, also arose as a rebellion against the Hindu value system: Buddha didn’t meditate on how to adapt the feeling of compassion to the caste system, according to a selective spiritual vision, respecting castes and finding it normal to despise those who had incarnated in the poor and unfortunate neighbourhoods of the world, in a slum in Mumbai, Gaza, or South Africa.
I believe you have the right to meditate according to the teachings of biologist Jon Kabat Zinn as long as you like, but without forgetting that shopping is also good every now and then, especially when the refrigerator is emptying or you’ve run out of Lavazza Qualità Rossa.
I wonder why Buddha wanted to break with his family’s religious tradition. He could have continued to be a good father, husband, and ruler, meditating as long as he wanted, with a few coffee breaks—strictly Italian, in a moka pot or espresso, at the bar just below the castle.
Shantam, stop parroting Lokesh, he’s not the boss here anymore, if you really can’t help but kiss an ass there’s always Guru N.’s.
What about an article about a young Indian man who claims to be the reincarnation of Bhagwan/Rajneesh/Osho?
His name is Bhagwan Shashi Vasudev.
The cult of Osho won´t accept that….
Nothing wrong with that, I’d say let him claim that. It’s perfectly alright, just do nothing and say, “maybe so, maybe not.”
This was one fine answer from you, Nityaprem.
Does it mean you are not one of those 99.99% cultists who would say, Osho said it is his last life?!
Shantam, I didn’t realize it was one of your philological traps, luckily I didn’t express myself too quickly.
Now I can say it with absolute certainty, without needing to listen to the boy: the young man can’t be a joke by Osho. When Osho said his was the last reincarnation, he was serious; he didn’t like contradicting himself or making jokes.
Only a Bodhisattva could love his human brothers more, to the point of not caring about contradicting himself and preferring to return for tormented disciples like you who have lost their touch with Western girls… btw, how are you with Indian girls? Do you have any advice to share?
I have a problem with K (for confidentiality reasons, I can’t tell you who she is). I’d like to invite her to dinner, but I don’t know how to start. Malai Kofta or Spaghetti Carbonara?
A multitude of words is tiresome,
Unlike remaining centred.
Hardcore criminals also remain centred, most often more centred than the monks or half-monks, half-cheaters.
Shantam, it’s not just hardcore criminals who can benefit from mindfulness.
Speaking of post-modern meditative practices, it seems that young people from all over the world (mostly poor, even English) have managed to detach themselves from the virtual reality of the web to do something noble, like repel the invading Russian army.
https://t.me/TrackAMercChat
Centred? I guess they don’t know what this means.
Satchit, I don’t think Lokesh was talking about you, unless his account was hacked.
Francesco, you seem centred in your mind.
Ever heard of being centred in the being?
Satchit, I am sure there are many like me who are enjoying this Now! I feel like saying I love you!
You surprise me, Kavita.
Love is in the Air…
https://youtu.be/ZWzWL-S05fg?si=L6fyclNikMoveQie
Satchit, I know centering as an experience connected to witnessing. I don’t know what you mean when you say “centered in your mind.”
Perhaps you meant that my mind is focused on an object.
It remains to be seen what relationship exists between my being and that object—that is, whether thinking about that object is tiring or relieving for me, or whether it would be even more tiring to repress the emergence of that object.
For me, words about reality are not reality (in this case, conscious mind vs. being).
Every hypothesis about it, therefore, has equal dialectical dignity.
What is not neutral is the ontological-hermeneutic responsibility of each individual in making their own choice regarding hypotheses (scientific, philosophical, psychological, spiritual) already available or yet to be formulated-discovered (as in the case of the Masters).
The risk is that without the choice reality can be a foregone conclusion, not worthy of being experienced.
After the three narcissistic wounds inflicted on the human race by Copernicus, Darwin and Freud, it wouldn’t even be such a great tragedy.
Those are Lao Tzu’s words, not mine. Tao Te Ching. I just thought it would make a change from “Osho says….”
There is always room for the words of the wise….
Yeah.
If me, myself and I could write in a similar fluent style as Lewis Richmond in this article in Tricycle.com from 2025…
I would. But I can’t. So I don’t:
https://tricycle.org/magazine/lewis-richmond-quiet-life/
Why would the driver ask that there be
“No Spitting On the Bus”?
The Steve Gibbons Band
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uMntJW950MA
The Steve Gibbons Band? I saw them many times in Camden’s Roundhouse. They were a good local band. My favourite song by them is ‘One of the Boys’ ….used to take the roof off.
Great song, ‘One of the Boys’…just mulling over “Life on the dole ain’t no good for your soul. It’s enough to drive a poor kid mad” – really?
Perhaps it’s the Protestant ethic speaking in Steve, the same ethic that a couple of years later would allow Lady Margaret to reverse the redistributive trend, leaving the only free lunchs for industrialists, royals and bankers.
But it’s possible the phrase was written ironically, foreseeing what would happen shortly thereafter.
I sense a certain paternalism regarding the sterility of the Punk movement, which I agree with, although with certain politicians, spitting is more necessary than analysis:
a rebelliousness without a comprehensive, and therefore political, vision, culminating in taking their mohawks and leather jackets too seriously, providing a new fashion to conform to, those who were originally anti-fashion.
Plus, I didn’t like their music…and the punks I hung out with during my military service drank too much for my taste.
I’ve seen photos of Steve Gibbons when he was 50 or 60…he reminds me of someone I saw in Pune. I remember being struck by his certain aura of a popular star. At the time, I thought he was the famous actor Terence Stamp, but now I realize they look a bit similar.
It’s also plausible that he had a connection with Osho through his artistic friendship with ELO keyboardist Richard Tandy, who lived in the Medina commune.
I read a bit of the Tricycle article before their paywall shut me out, interesting that he would argue for a quiet life as a key component of the bodhisattva path.
Nityaprem, the same thing happened to me… it was a joke by our neoliberal-Europeanist-globalist friend Klaus, at least he’s not lacking in irony.
Klaus whets our appetite with the opening of an article that leads to a good read, about a bodhisattva who ponders what to do when economic, social, ecological, and military threats loom over us, and we, who have already humbly fallen to our knees, ready for a little light and comfort, are suddenly awakened by a bucket of ice water that brings us back to the reality of social power relations: if you have money, you’re safe, otherwise you’re screwed!
VF, the freedom to frame anything or everything according to your mind-frame – is certainly yours. Forever. And for always.
Maybe or perhaps that framing is…inadequate.
Your critical thoughts have been thought (years and decades) before. By so many persons.
Thesis
Anti-thesis
Syn-thesis
No-thesis.
Cheers.
Klaus, dear keyboard friend, I’m delighted to hear I’ve chosen the wrong frame.
I’m not so paranoid as to necessarily want to put you in the same frame as the servants of finance and its military-industrial complex, despisers of the people like Draghi, Rutte, Von der Lyen, Kallas, Schwab (Klaus, for business friends)…
Thank you for confirming Hegel’s relevance, although now that you’ve pointed it out with some annoyance, I should assume you don’t like the dialectical approach…are you challenging me? Should I expect a club blow from yours behind my back? But then I can’t put you in the same frame as my Bolshevik friends…the paranoia is growing…perhaps, suspending political judgment, I should learn to spit like a punk.
Aiiiie.
They let me read it once in full.
Before popping up the subscription screen….
Found it here as a podcast:
https://www.zencommuter.com/blog/2112
…
“Today’s featured article is The Power of a Quiet Life by Lewis Richmond. In this thoughtful reflection, Richmond reminds us that simplicity and stillness are not just retreats from the world but powerful foundations for inner strength and clarity.”…
Lokie, you were right about having Shantam back, already enjoying this! The energy has changed Now, don’t you think?
Don’t get too wet, Kavita, these are people over 70.
Hi Kavita,
What do I think?
Had I not met Shantam some summers ago, I would probably have written him off as someone overly identified with the mind. A headbanger. As it is, I know the man to be a kind human being, a loving father and a good laugh in an Indian ‘Goodness, gracious me!’ style.
Whether or not intentional, Shantam is a bit of a reactionary who perhaps presumes himself to be a revolutionary. People like that are sometimes attracted to SN. Anything as long as there is a bit of emotional reaction, no matter what, sort of thing. Just do not ignore me, whatever you do.
Bottom line, I like Shantam as a man.
Lokesh, it’s hard to ignore you! You know you are our favourite Scots sannyasin (as well as probably the only Scots sannyasin that we know). May your days be warm and your sunsets ever colourful….
Well, NP. It is often said that wherever one goes in the world, there will always be a Scot.
Late afternoon and time for a wee swim in the sea.
Seems we both share the same sentiment about him!
Which one, the headbanger or the man?
Don’t you worry, Veet, I guess I know when & with whom to get wet!
Kavita, you’re not alone. I don’t think I have the keys to seducing an Indian woman.
I find you all very fascinating, too bad there’s no reciprocity.
Maybe I should learn to dance like an Indian:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BTW6lco_s0k
“That’s why no wife can really respect the husband, nor can the husband respect the wife. They hate each other. Now, psychologists are perfectly right when they say that husbands and wives are intimate enemies. And the reason? The reason is: you cannot love someone on whom you have to depend. Now, the man has to depend on the wife. He has a sexual need and the wife takes every opportunity to torture him. That is her only opportunity to torture him.
The man tortures her in many other ways. She is dependent financially. She has not the freedom to move in society; she has not the freedom to feel independent, liberated. Even the women who think they are liberated are not liberated. They are only reacting. They are still in the same old grip, only they have gone to the other extreme.
The moment you feel you are no longer dependent on anyone, a deep coolness and a deep silence settles inside, a relaxed let-go. It does not mean you stop loving. On the contrary, for the first time you know a new quality, a new dimension of love: a love which is no more biological, a love which is closer to friendliness than any relationship. That’s why I am not even using the word ‘friendship’, because that ‘ship’ has drowned so many people.”
( Osho, ‘Sat, Chit, Anand’ )
Some might say, thus spoke a sexually repressed Indian geezer who was never much good at relationships.
As far as I am concerned, I can’t relate very much to any of this cynical nonsense, because it is not at all my experience in life.
That NP finds this Osho quote good enough to publish on SN perhaps says more about the way he relates to women than anything else. Or why else publish it?
Thanks, Nityaprem, you always find the right quotes at the right time.
I’m flirting with an Indian woman, and these words put me on the right track to approach her.
Osho is addressing an audience of mostly repressed Indians, Indian women financially dependent on their husbands, and the usual proverbial Scottish loner: wherever one goes in the world, there will always be a Scot.
It’s illuminating how Osho, with his light irony, manages to ease social tensions built up over millennia of conditioning, capturing three pigeons with a broad bean (it’s an Italian proverb about efficiency, even though the pigeons were two, but in the case of the Master of Masters, providence is never a flaw), pointing out to repressed Indian husbands and financially dependent Indian wives the Scottish loner, with plenty of money but no wife.
@MOD
sw. veet francesco says:
Your comment is awaiting moderation.
29 May, 2026 at 2:17 pm
The comment of mine above in Caravanserai is currently appearing twice, as if it had been published, but it is still appears awaiting moderation.
There’s also another post of mine that hasn’t been published, the one on the political-military escalation between the EU and Russia. Please check to see if this is a technical error. There’s no reason to object if there were other reasons.
MOD:
Veet Francesco, these comments weren’t published as they’re not directly relevant to this site.
@MOD
“Not directly relevant to this site,” you say?
One comment discussed music and the anti-systemic vision of punk, a theme introduced by Klaus with a Steve Gibbons song featuring social and political criticism. The comment delved deeper into those aspects, also drawing on my own experience as a teenager in the ’70s, observing the punk phenomenon through the eyes of a boy immersed in the culture of southern Italy’s provinces. I also pointed out that my negative opinion of punk music was strictly related to the group of Milanese friends during our military service, with their underground cassette tapes of rhythmic noise.
In my opinion, the theme of punk culture’s rebelliousness is very relevant to the site, just as the music I shared is relevant to a topic about dance.
Maybe you don’t like the music I featured, but that’s really relevant to the site.
The other comment concerns the theme introduced by Klaus, about difficult times, including the nuclear threat.
He offers the wise advice of one of his gurus, such as “if you don’t know what to do, be patient, don’t do it, but don’t do it slowly and with a clear mind.”
In my comment, I confirmed that we live in difficult times, but, applying Goofy’s philosophy (“it’s strange how a descent, seen from below, resembles an ascent”), I pointed out a few politicians who have an easy life thanks to the spiritual bypassing of those who force themselves to believe that if they live a slave life, it’s because they don’t meditate much, not because of their chains.
So, I pointed out how military escalation could have further shortened the chains, preventing the EU from dancing near potential Russian military targets, the ones that are producing the weapons the Ukrainians are using against them.
Perhaps you don’t like the idea that your spiritual bypassing is making times incredibly easy for our leaders; this too is relevant to the site.
Proposal:
If anyone finds this comment relevant, I ask you to consider the possibility that my two comments awaiting moderation might also be relevant.
The other option would be to also consider Klaus’s comments, which inspired this reflection of mine, “irrelevant to the site.” That would be very consistent. Thank you.
MOD:
This site wasn’t founded to be a forum for political discussion, however strongly you feel about these issues.
I wouldn’t be surprised if SN readers are not particularly interested in your lengthy analyses and viewpoints, however well researched and dear they are to you.
We’ll see what people’s responses are.
@MOD
Thanks. If other friends here agree with you, believing that an Osho forum shouldn’t discuss what happened to Zorba during the bombings, I’ll take my advice and leave.
I think if commentary on other topics — be they political, environmental, social — started to dominate over things directly relating to sannyas or Osho, I would also start reducing that volume of posts, if I were the moderator.
Some people post more than others, and some post more directly about Osho or sannyas. But in the end we are all here because we are interested in the topic, and keeping the site alive means stimulating the talk, so some off-topic banter should be allowed. The best banter, of course, is that which engages everyone…
Now I am off to watch the Champions League final.
Nityaprem, on another occasion you expressed appreciation for my comments, saying you even found them more interesting than Lokesh’s. I thanked you then, and I reciprocate your appreciation now for the honesty you put into your posts, which I often argue with.
It’s true, you and I, lately, are the ones who write more than others, but I don’t believe things can’t change and we return to the old glories, when shopping bags full of piss flew, amid the smug sneers of bullies.
Perhaps the current times don’t encourage comedy.
It’s not our fault if the forum isn’t what it once was, but rather the comedians who have exhausted their repertoire of insults to Osho and his lovers-friends.
It was enough for a few older commentators to reappear to raise the issue of too many and too long comments, so it’s best to be selective, choosing which topics to address and which to skip.
For me, meditation is the art of being with what’s there…I think I read it in a book on codependency. When times are tough, I don’t seek refuge in nostalgia or hope.
“I didn’t just want to attend parties, I wanted to have the power to make them fail!” Jep Gambardella
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Li8kcdgeB9w
Nityaprem, perhaps you could describe how you can devote yourself to spirituality while abstracting yourself from everything else.
I’d like you to tell me, if it exists and if you’ve found it, how to reach that metaphysical garden, suspended in time and space, far from the social dynamics and politics that shape them.
It would be greatly appreciated, perhaps not only by me, that you could contribute to deciding which direction the neo-sannyasin movement would be wise to take, in these times when the ongoing genocide in Gaza and other wars that have dragged on for decades are the side effects of a system of production-exploitation that pervades and poisons every aspect of social life.
Otherwise, if that metaphysical place doesn’t exist, because it’s structurally impossible for our social nature for it to exist (if autism isn’t a blessing), then talking about the spiritual teachings of this or that guru seems superficial to me, even a narcissistic display of literary virtue, à la Jep Gambardella.
When Stefania, the radical leftist chic of the group of bored and cynical friends from the film “The Great Beauty” (the film contrasts the beauty of Rome with the human squalor of people with no passion, except for the passion of quenching the passion of others. Jep himself, the protagonist, later discovers how he’s wasted his life) tries to give a moral lesson to the rest of the group, saying that she’s tried to change things, that she’s not a snob, Jep warns her a couple of times with a light barrage of fire.
But she insists, saying she’s a woman with balls, and then Jep:
“Any gentleman would collapse over the phrase “woman with balls”… You asked for it, didn’t you?
In no particular order. No one remembers your civic vocation during your university days; many, however, personally remember another vocation of yours that was expressed back then, but it was practiced in the university bathrooms… You wrote the official history of the party because for years you were the lover of the party leader. Your eleven novels published by a small party-funded publishing house, reviewed by small, party-friendly newspapers, are irrelevant novels, everyone says so. This doesn’t change the fact that my youthful novel was irrelevant, too, and I agree with you.
Your affair with Eusebio: but what was it? Eusebio is in love with Giordano, everyone knows it… for years they’ve been having lunch every day at Arnalda’s, in the Pantheon, under the coat rack like two sweethearts, under the oak tree. Everyone knows it, yet you pretend nothing has happened. You would sacrifice every minute to raise your children: you work all week on television, you go out every night, even on Mondays, when not even the poppers dealers show up. Your children are always without you: even during the long holidays you allow yourself, and then you have a butler, a waiter, a cook, a chauffeur who takes the kids to school, three babysitters… But really… how and when does your sacrifice manifest itself?!
These are your lies and your frailties.
Stefà, mother and woman, you’re fifty-three years old and have a devastated life, like the rest of us…
So instead of lecturing us… of looking at us with dislike, you should look at us… with affection.
We’re all on the brink of despair, we have no choice but to look each other in the face, keep each other company, tease each other a little… isn’t it so?”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vdzIiPu0HCU
Last night in Hungary, Karma presented the bill to the British arsenal(s).
“Let’s empty the arsenals and fill the granaries!” Sandro Pertini (1978)
Well, the answer is simply this: turn within. Let the example you set be one of kindness, joy, celebration, dance, and not Ché Guevara’s revolutionary fervour, or the philosophy of Marx. The mind and its knowledge of history are not your friends.
I wonder if you’re always turned whitin, NP, or only when you meditate in your room—that is, if what happens outside your room can affect your kindness and joy.
I don’t think your “turn whitin” will help you overcome your paranoia about communists, people who in NL aren’t known for their kindness, joy, celebration, or dance…very different from the peaceful neoliberal heroes.
Meanwhile, the post-fascist Italian government has just sent 100 soldiers to Romania, making Mark Rutte, a Bill Clinton admirer, as enthusiastic as Monica Lewinsky.
The cause is said to be a Russian drone that crashed in that country; the mainstream press immediately identified it as the one that was launched from the toilet window of Vladimir, the Black Lamb of God.
Aye, sitting by a campfire in the highlands, we would eat our porridge and listen to Granny Macfuggit tell us about the goud auld days. Time after time, the wizened auld crone would return to one of her favourite sayings, “If you want to know who someone is, look to who they are friends with.”
Who knows what wrinkled old hag Granny MacFuggit would say about a friend like Osho, she who is suspicious of everything that comes from the nearest village.
Better not spread the word that members of the porridge club (food strictly cooked over a bonfire of dried Highland cow poop) crossed a thousand villages to kiss the feet of an Indian sage who had walked miles of Gobar.
Indeed. The Dutch website by the local Osho foundation is called ‘the friends of Osho’, which to my mind is a broader group than all those who have taken sannyas.
I find it really interesting that there seems to be such an emphasis on anti-cult behaviour coming out of the US and maybe also mainstream media in Europe. I remember there being talk about “new religious movements” (or nrm’s) back in the eighties, it was a lot more tolerant back then.
Nowadays if you admit to being “a friend of a guru” in Europe people look at you very strangely.
For those interested, here is a recent photo of Granny MacFuggit, taken down at the local, The Hairy Pie, on the Isle of Lewis.
Mr. Self-Love and Madame Vanity are the two chief agents of the devil. ~ George Gurdjieff
I think this contribution of yours is very honest, Lokesh.
I wonder what Gurdjieff would have to say about jealousy? I suppose it is related to vanity, but I think it is a more direct expression of what is corrupt in the human soul.
Perhaps by “jealousy” connected to vanity, did you mean “envy,” Nityaprem?
I heard Osho use the same word, and even then it seemed like he was referring to the other one. In Italian, they’re well distinct, non-overlapping words; I don’t know about English.
Anyway, according to Christian tradition (influenced by Greek philosophy), the soul is “the immortal and incorruptible spiritual principle created by God.”
Perhaps you were referring to some other philosophical or religious idea of the soul: anemos, psyche, res cogitans, atman, anatta, nefesh…
I was recently listening to a young high school philosophy teacher discuss the paradox Foucault encountered in his attempt to describe human nature: the more man knows himself (like any other object), the further he distances himself from his own nature as a living being (as opposed to the predictable and measurable nature of any other object).
The debate on human nature still seems wide open; keeping Osho’s metacognitive approach on the cultural margins helps fuel discord (divide and conquer), reducing the issue to nature vs. culture.
It would be important, NP, for you to establish which soul shapes human nature. Perhaps you could finally refute Aristotle, who obsessed with defining the human being as a “rational and political animal” (I don’t think by “political” he was thinking of Stefania in the famous film).
Off topic, but not too much, expressed with the question: Could we still dance wildly, men and women together, if Muhammad triumphed in Europe?
I’d share an article by Professor Zhok on the hypothesis of Europe becoming Islamized, on how this should not be seen as a negative social-spiritual fact, preferable to the spiritual void of having no religion at all.
There are very few things I disagree with what he writes; even in this long article, the only disagreement is with the concept described above (even the negative connotation he gives to the notion of “emptiness” doesn’t convince me), something that is relevant to what I have already passionately argued about in his Telegram chat, to the point of being banned:
“PEOPLE, DEMOCRACY, AND SOME MISUNDERSTANDINGS
The problem posed by democracy is the problem of the existence and functionality of a people (demos). Stating that “sovereignty belongs to the people” is an essential but insufficient step.
The left of progressives and liberals has created a fiction, devoid of any historical or practical foundation, according to which democracies can exist without peoples. In fact, these “democracies without peoples” are simply the reduction of democracy to a total (global) non-place of voluntary exchanges. This is the “democracy” where “a dollar is a vote” and where the will of the people is expressed with the acts of purchase on the market. Obviously, there is no collective identity here, and therefore no political horizon, which requires the possibility of a horizontal discussion among all decision-makers. This is the “global village” of “citizens of the world.” Politics is replaced by economics, democracy by the market. Whether they realize it or not, this is exactly the direction in which all the various “no-border” activists and all those who think that citizenship is a useless frill or a politically correct honor are moving.
Democracies began to exist when territorially defined political systems came into being, where the laws, decided by those who permanently belong to the territory, apply to what happens on that territory. (This is the reason why there are those exceptions—extraterritoriality—such as embassies or ships, where a law defined by one people applies to a distant and different territory.) Otherwise, there are empires, monarchies, or plutocratic oligarchies.
But if the left is confused and inconclusive in its The right is no less so.
There is a segment of the right—currently a minority—that has never recognized the very idea of popular sovereignty, and with it the very idea of democracy.
Then there is a significant segment of the right wing that actually embraces the liberal-democratic conception, according to which a dollar is a vote, and according to which, ultimately, people’s decisions must be “weighed” and not counted: the richer simply have more weight, and that’s right. This perspective formally accepts democracy, understanding it as a form of plutocracy. To the limited extent that it reflects us, this right wing justifies itself on the basis of some form of “social Darwinism.”
Finally, there is a segment of the right wing that remains at a level of pure cultural chaos, imagining that it’s enough to chatter about “traditions,” “Judeo-Christian roots,” or “Italianness” to have something on its mind. This is the most insidious part, because the mental confusion It allows for the indiscriminate mixing of very different things, right and wrong, paradoxically gaining credibility precisely because of this confusion in which everyone can recognize something similar.
The concept of “tradition” is enormously important, since it is essentially an equivalent for “cultural transmission,” and no people (nor any democratic politics) exists without a good commonality in “cultural transmission.” But the “tradition” on the right usually involves things like the “Sagra dei Osei” or the “Festival della Porchetta” (a celebration of two traditional regional recipes: Polenta with Birds and Whole Roast Pig), worthy things, of course, but essentially brands to be sold to tourists as “typical products.” At the same time as they rant about these “traditions,” the right wing (just like the left wing) dismantles school planning programs, demolishes theaters, joyfully welcomes the Americanization of academies, etc.
As for pleasantries like “Judeo-Christian roots,” this is a hypostatization of a hircocervus, a product of fantasy, given 1) that the history of Christianity is proverbially divided within itself, 2) Judaism in Europe has counted for nothing as a cult—mostly confined to the ghettos—and 3) given that the broadest and most unifying common roots of European culture are the Greco-Roman ones, from which Christian denominations have established themselves in highly divergent forms (consider the connection between Orthodox Christianity and the Greek roots of the Eastern Roman Empire).
This hypostatization, however, is not an innocent error. It effectively serves the purpose of DESTROYING European roots, bringing them back into the sphere of influence of the American-led West. “Judeo-Christian roots” are an invention whose true meaning is not to reconnect with one’s own (European) cultural tradition, but to assimilate into the US-Israeli dyad that has dominated Western politics since 1945.
It is on this basis that right-wing anti-Islamism arises, intentionally confusing the (real) problem of uncontrolled migratory flows with the (fictitious) problem of the Islamization of the West. As if the riots in the French suburbs or the ISIS attacks were moments in a “process of Islamization.”
Final note:
This, however, does not mean that Europe cannot at some point “Islamize.”
Given that there are countless varieties of Islam, and that therefore any discussion of “Islamization,” without further clarification, conflates literally incommensurable things, it is nevertheless not at all excluded that Europe could “Islamize” at some point.
If this happens, it will not be through a coup d’état or the imposition of Sharia law by force, but through the voluntary conversion of Europeans: the achievement of internal hegemony.
Islam is a growing religion today because it represents a spiritual perspective in a world, like that of neoliberal Europe, which has systematically eradicated every spiritual dimension. It matters little that Europe can legitimately reconnect with a rich spiritual tradition. If this remains a pennant to be brandished at some public ceremony, with nothing behind it, its fate is sealed. Nature, including human nature, abhors a vacuum. And spiritual emptiness (the vicissitudes of the decline of the Roman Empire illustrate this well) is never tolerated for long.” Prof Andrea Zhok
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0NDy6Rlijzo
Would you then say that a people without a spiritual conviction are empty at heart, and ready for a collapse?
“Mr. Self-Love and Madame Vanity are the two chief agents of the devil.” ~ George Gurdjieff
very true, for name change cult from top to bottom, front till the shadow side.
Shantam, in your religion, Waheguru has no rivals.
I don’t think you handle the idea of the devil very well. It’s a Western thing. Don’t get involved. You don’t have enough guilt, like psychopaths.
“Our vast collections of knowledge and experience are just part of ego’s display, part of the grandiose quality of ego. We display them to the world and, in so doing, reassure ourselves that we exist, safe and secure as ‘spiritual people’.” (Chogyam Trungpa)
That’s hilarious, and sharply observed.
From the ‘Memoirs of an Alcoholic’ series, a collection of books:
https://www.amazon.it/Chogyam-Trungpa-Libri/s?k=Chogyam+Trungpa&rh=n%3A411663031
Before commenting on Lewis Ruthmond’s words shared by Klaus, about the wisdom of finding “your own pace” (not just your external pace), here’s a funny and moving speech from a comedian.
A sharing of how compassion, by someone who graduated from Harvard University and then began learning from his failures, frees us from our self-centeredness, making room for joy and celebration.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F3fCktnkBbc